Sunday, January 10, 2016

#Thisisme: Atheist

I'm neither spiritual nor religious, but I am very introspective.

I gave up on the United Church of Canada and Christianity as a whole as a 13 year old. It was grade 9, and two factors agitated my break from religion. I experienced the first death in my family, my maternal grandmother, and world religions were taught in the social studies curriculum.

I understood at a young age that the world I wanted to shape was at odds with religion. I want more thinking and solving. Facts are the best tools we have for forming public opinion and policy. Religions substitute faith for fact and prescribe arbitrary lifestyles to achieve an impossible ultimate good.

As a secularist, I ardently advance the value for logic over faith, and as a civil libertarian, I support every religion's right to flourish in the private sphere. I do not, however, believe that the propagation of religion is an inherent good and argue churches should be stripped of charitable status, unless they provide social services.

I definitely have some deep thoughts on the workings of the universe, but I'm saving those for a post next week when I come out as post-modern.